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Lord of the Flies

By William Golding

Day 7 Audio

Simon stayed where he was, a small brown image, concealed by the leaves. Even if he shut his eyes the sow’s head still remained like an after-image. The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.

   “I know that.”

   Simon discovered that he had spoken aloud. He opened his eyes quickly and there was the head grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies, the spilled guts, even ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick.

   He looked away, licking his dry lips.

   A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others. It was a joke really-why should you bother? You were just wrong, that’s all. A little headache, something you ate, perhaps. Go back, child, said the head silently.

   Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and copper-colored. The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed, produced moment by moment this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leap-frog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood-and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon’s right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.

   Ralph and Piggy lay in the sand, gazing at the fire and idly flicking pebbles into its smokeless heart.

   “That branch is gone.”

   “Where’s Samneric?”

   “We ought to get some more wood. We’re out of green branches.”

   Ralph sighed and stood up. There were no shadows under the palms on the platform; only this strange light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. High up among the bulging clouds thunder went off like a gun.

   “We’re going to get buckets of rain.”

   “What about the fire?”

   Ralph trotted into the forest and returned with a wide spray of green which he dumped on the fire. The branch crackled, the leaves curled and the yellow smoke expanded.

   Piggy made an aimless little pattern in the sand with his fingers.

   “Trouble is, we haven’t got enough people for a fire. You got to treat Samneric as one turn. They do everything together-”

   “Of course.”

   “Well, that isn’t fair. Don’t you see? They ought to do two turns.”

   Ralph considered this and understood. He was vexed to find how little he thought like a grownup and sighed again. The island was getting worse and worse.

   Piggy looked at the fire.

   “You’ll want another green branch soon.”

   Ralph rolled over.

   “Piggy. What are we going to do?”

   “Just have to get on without ‘em.”

   “But-the fire.”

   He frowned at the black and white mess in which lay the unburnt ends of branches. He tried to formulate.

   “I’m scared.”

   He saw Piggy look up; and blundered on.

   “Not of the beast. I mean I’m scared of that too. But nobody else understands about the fire. If someone threw you a rope when you were drowning. If a doctor said take this because if you don’t take it you’ll die-you would, wouldn’t you? I mean?”

   “ ‘Course I would.”

   “Can’t they see? Can’t they understand? Without the smoke signal we’ll die here? Look at that!”

   A wave of heated air trembled above the ashes but without a trace of smoke.

   “We can’t keep one fire going. And they don’t care. And what’s more-” He looked intensely into Piggy’s streaming face.

   “What’s more, I don’t sometimes. Supposing I got like the others-not caring. What ‘ud become of us?”

   Piggy took off his glasses, deeply troubled.

   “I dunno, Ralph. We just got to go on, that’s all. That’s what grownups would do.”

   Ralph, having begun the business of unburdening himself, continued.

   “Piggy, what’s wrong?”

   Piggy looked at him in astonishment.

   “Do you mean the-?”

   “No, not it ... I mean . . . what makes things break up like they do?”

   Piggy rubbed his glasses slowly and thought. When he understood how far Ralph had gone toward accepting him he flushed pinkly with pride.

   “I dunno, Ralph. I expect it’s him.”

   “Jack?”

   “Jack.” A taboo was evolving round that word too.

   Ralph nodded solemnly.

   “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it must be.”

   The forest near them burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green rushed out howling, so that the littluns fled screaming. Out of the corner of his eye, Ralph saw Piggy running. Two figures rushed at the fire and he prepared to defend himself but they grabbed half-burnt branches and raced away along the beach. The three others stood still, watching Ralph; and he saw that the tallest of them, stark naked save for paint and a belt, was Jack.

   Ralph had his breath back and spoke.

   “Well?”

   Jack ignored him, lifted his spear and began to shout.

   “Listen all of you. Me and my hunters, we’re living along the beach by a flat rock. We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us. Perhaps I’ll let you join. Perhaps not.”

   He paused and looked round. He was safe from shame or self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint and could look at each of them in turn. Ralph was kneeling by the remains of the fire like a sprinter at his mark and his face was half-hidden by hair and smut. Samneric peered together round a palm tree at the edge of the forest A littlun howled, creased and crimson, by the bathing pool and Piggy stood on the platform, the white conch gripped in his hands.

   ‘“Tonight we’re having a feast We’ve killed a pig and we’ve got meat. You can come and eat with us if you like.”

   Up in the cloud canyons the thunder boomed again. Jack and the two anonymous savages with him swayed, looking up, and then recovered. The littlun went on howling. Jack was waiting for something. He whispered urgently to the others.

   “Go on-now!”

   The two savages murmured. Jack spoke sharply.

   “Go on!” The two savages looked at each other, raised their spears together and spoke in time.

   “The Chief has spoken.”

   Then the three of them turned and trotted away.

   Presently Ralph rose to his feet, looking at the place where the savages had vanished. Samneric came, talking in an awed whisper.

   “I thought it was-”

   “-and I was-”

   “-scared.”

   Piggy stood above them on the platform, still holding the conch.

   “That was Jack and Maurice and Robert,” said Ralph. “Aren’t they having fun?”

   “I thought I was going to have asthma.”

   “Sucks to your butt-mar.”

   “When I saw Jack I was sure he’d go for the conch. Can’t think why.”

   The group of boys looked at the white shell with affectionate respect. Piggy placed it in Ralph’s hands and the littluns, seeing the familiar symbol, started to come back.

   “Not here.”

   He turned toward the platform, feeling the need for ritual. First went Ralph, the white conch cradled, then Piggy very grave, then the twins, then the littluns and the others.

   “Sit down all of you. They raided us for fire. They’re having fun. But the-”

   Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down.

   “But the-”

   They were regarding him gravely, not yet troubled by any doubts about his sufficiency. Ralph pushed the idiot hair out of his eyes and looked at Piggy.

   “But the ... oh ... the fire! Of course, the fire!”

   He started to laugh, then stopped and became fluent instead.

   “The fire’s the most important thing. Without the fire we can’t be rescued. I’d like to put on war-paint and be a savage. But we must keep the fire burning. The fire’s the most important thing on the island, because, because-”

   He paused again and the silence became full of doubt and wonder.

   Piggy whispered urgently. “Rescue.”

   “Oh yes. Without the fire we can’t be rescued. So we must stay by the fire and make smoke.”

   When he stopped no one said anything. After the many brilliant speeches that had been made on this very spot Ralph s remarks seemed lame, even to the littluns. At last Bill held out his hands for the conch. “Now we can’t have the fire up there-because we can’t have the fire up there-we need more people to keep it going. Let’s go to this feast and tell them the fire’s hard on the rest of us. And the hunting and all that, being savages I mean-it must be jolly good fun.”

   Samneric took the conch.

   “That must be fun like Bill says-and as he’s invited us-”

   “-to a feast-”

   “-meat-”

   “-crackling-”

   “-I could do with some meat-”

   Ralph held up his hand.

   “Why shouldn’t we get our own meat?”

   The twins looked at each other. Bill answered.

   “We don’t want to go in the jungle.”

   Ralph grimaced.

   “He-you know-goes.”

   “He’s a hunter. They’re all hunters. That’s different.”

   No one spoke for a moment, then Piggy muttered to the sand.

   “Meat-”

   The littluns sat, solemnly thinking of meat, and dribbling. Overhead the cannon boomed again and the dry palm fronds clattered in a sudden gust of hot wind.

   “You are a silly little boy,” said the Lord of the Flies, “just an ignorant, silly little boy.”

   Simon moved his swollen tongue but said nothing.

   “Don’t you agree?” said the Lord of the Flies. “Aren’t you just a silly little boy?”

   Simon answered him in the same silent voice.

   “Well then,” said the Lord of the Flies, “you’d better run off and play with the others. They think you’re batty. You don’t want Ralph to think you’re batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don’t you? And Piggy, and Jack?”

   Simon’s head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him.

   “What are you doing out here all alone? Aren’t you afraid of me?”

   Simon shook.

   “There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast.”

   Simon’s mouth labored, brought forth audible words.

   “Pig’s head on a stick.”

   “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!” said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”

   The laughter shivered again.

   “Come now,” said the Lord of the Flies. “Get back to the others and we’ll forget the whole thing.”

   Simon’s head wobbled. His eyes were half closed as though he were imitating the obscene thing on the stick. He knew that one of his times was coming on. The Lord of the Flies was expanding like a balloon.

   “This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you’ll only meet me down there-so don’t try to escape!”

   Simon’s body was arched and stiff. The Lord of the Flies spoke in the voice of a schoolmaster.

   “This has gone quite far enough. My poor, misguided child, do you think you know better than I do?”

   There was a pause.

   “I’m warning you. I’m going to get angry. D’you see? You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don’t try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else-”

   Simon found he was looking into a vast mouth. There was blackness within, a blackness that spread.

   “-Or else,” said the Lord of the Flies, “we shall do you. See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?”

   Simon was inside the mouth. He fell down and lost consciousness.

  

CHAPTER NINE

 

A View to a Death

 

   Over the island the build-up of clouds continued. A steady current of heated air rose all day from the mountain and was thrust to ten thousand feet; revolving masses of gas piled up the static until the air was ready to explode. By early evening the sun had gone and a brassy glare had taken the place of clear daylight. Even the air that pushed in from the sea was hot ana held no refreshment. Colors drained from water and trees and pink surfaces of rock, and the white and brown clouds brooded, Nothing prospered but the flies who blackened their lord and made the spilt guts look like a heap of glistening coal Even when the vessel broke in Simon’s nose and the blood gushed out they left him alone, preferring the pig’s high flavor.

   With the running of the blood Simon’s fit passed into the weariness of sleep. He lay in the mat of creepers while the evening advanced and the cannon continued to play. At last he woke and saw dimly the dark earth close by his cheek. Still he did not move but lay there, his face side-ways on the earth, his eyes looking dully before him. Then he turned over, drew his feet under him and laid hold of the creepers to pull himself up. When the creepers shook the flies exploded from the guts with a vicious note and clamped back on again. Simon got to his feet. The light was unearthly. The Lord of the Flies hung on his stick like a black ball.

   Simon spoke aloud to the clearing.

   “What else is there to do?”

   Nothing replied. Simon turned away from the open space and crawled through the creepers till he was in the dusk of the forest. He walked drearily between the trunks, his face empty of expression, and the blood was dry round his mouth and chin. Only sometimes as he lifted the ropes of creeper aside and chose his direction from the trend of the land, he mouthed words that did not reach the air.

   Presently the creepers festooned the trees less frequently and there was a scatter of pearly light from the sky down through the trees. This was the backbone of the island, the slightly higher land that lay beneath the mountain where the forest was no longer deep Jungle. Here there were wide spaces interspersed with thickets and huge trees and the trend of the ground led him up as the forest opened. He pushed on, staggering sometimes with his weariness but never stopping. The usual brightness was gone from his eyes and he walked with a sort of glum determination like an old man.

   A buffet of wind made him stagger and he saw that he was out in the open, on rock, under a brassy sky. He found his legs were weak and his tongue gave him pain all the time. When the wind reached the mountain-top he could see something happen, a flicker of blue stuff against brown clouds. He pushed himself forward and the wind came again, stronger now, cuffing the forest heads till they ducked and roared. Simon saw a humped thing suddenly sit up on the top and look down at him. He hid his face, and toiled on.

   The flies had found the figure too. The life-like movement would scare them off for a moment so that they made a dark cloud round the head. Then as the blue material of the parachute collapsed the corpulent figure would bow forward, sighing, and the flies settle once more.

   Simon felt his knees smack the rock. He crawled forward and soon he understood. The tangle of lines showed him the mechanics of this parody; he examined the white nasal bones, the teeth, the colors of corruption. He saw how pitilessly the layers of rubber and canvas held together the poor body that should be rotting away. Then the wind blew again and the figure lifted, bowed, and breathed foully at him. Simon knelt on all fours and was sick till his stomach was empty. Then he took the lines in his hands; he freed them from the rocks and the figure from the wind’s indignity.

   At last he turned away and looked down at the beaches. The fire by the platform appeared to be out, or at least making no smoke. Further along the beach, beyond the little river and near a great slab of rock, a thin trickle of smoke was climbing into the sky. Simon, forgetful of the lies, shaded his eyes with both hands and peered at the smoke. Even at that distance it was possible to see most of the boys-perhaps all the boys-were there. So they had shifted camp then, away from the beast. As Simon thought this, he turned to the poor broken thing that sat stinking by his side. The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible. He started down the mountain and his legs gave beneath him. Even with great care the best he could do was a stagger.

   “Bathing,” said Ralph, “that’s the only thing to do.”

   Piggy was inspecting the looming sky through his glass.

   “I don’t like them clouds. Remember how it rained just after we landed?”

   “Going to rain again.”

   Ralph dived into the pool. A couple of littluns were playing at the edge, trying to extract comfort from a wetness warmer than blood. Piggy took off his glasses, stepped primly into the water and then put them on again. Ralph came to the surface and squirted a jet of water at him.

   “Mind my specs,” said Piggy. “If I get water on the glass I got to get out and clean ‘em.”

   Ralph squirted again and missed. He laughed at Piggys expecting him to retire meekly as usual and in pained silence. Instead, Piggy beat the water with his hands.

   “Stop it!” he shouted. “D`you hear?”

   Furiously he drove the water into Ralph’s face.

   “All right, all right,” said Ralph. “Keep your hair on.”

   Piggy stopped beating the water.

   “I got a pain in my head. I wish the air was cooler.”

   “I wish the rain would come.”

   “I wish we could go home.”

   Piggy lay back against the sloping sand side of the pool. His stomach protruded and the water dried on it Ralph squirted up at the sky. One could guess at the movement of the sun by the progress of a light patch among the clouds. He knelt in the water and looked round.

   “Where’s everybody?”

   Piggy sat up.

   “P`raps they’re lying in the shelter.”

   “Where’s Samneric?”

   “And Bill?”

   Piggy pointed beyond the platform.

   “That’s where they’ve gone. Jack’s parry.”

   “Let them go,” said Ralph, uneasily, “I don’t care.”

   “Just for some meat-”

   “And for hunting,” said Ralph, wisely, “and for pretending to be a tribe, and putting on war-paint.”

   Piggy stirred the sand under water and did not look at Ralph.

   “P’raps we ought to go too.” Ralph looked at him quickly and Piggy blushed, “I mean-to make sure nothing happens.” Ralph squirted water again.

   Long before Ralph and Piggy came up with Jack’s lot, they could hear the party. There was a stretch of grass in a place where the palms left a wide band of turf between the forest and the snore. Just one step down from the edge of the turf was the white, blown sand of above high water, warm, dry, trodden. Below that again was a rock that stretched away toward the lagoon. Beyond was a short stretch of sand and then the edge of the water. A fire burned on the rock and fat dripped from the roasting pig-meat into the invisible flames. All the boys of the island, except Piggy, Ralph, Simon, and the two tending the pig, were grouped on the turf. They were laughing, singing, lying, squatting, or standing on the grass, holding food in their hands. But to judge by the greasy faces, the meat eating was almost done; and some held coconut shells in their hands and were drinking from them. Before the party had started a great log had been dragged into the center of the lawn and Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. There were piles of meat on green leaves near him, and fruit, and coconut shells full of drink.

   Piggy and Ralph came to the edge of the grassy platform; and the boys, as they noticed them, fell silent one by one till only the boy next to Jack was talking. Then the silence intruded even there and Jack turned where he sat For a time he looked at them and the crackle of the fire was the loudest noise over the droning of the reef, Ralph looked away; and Sam, thinking that Ralph had turned to him accusingly, put down his gnawed bone with a nervous giggle. Ralph took an uncertain step, pointed to a palm tree, and whispered something inaudible to Piggy; and they both giggled like Sam. Lifting his feet high out of the sand, Ralph started to stroll past. Piggy tried to whistle.

   At this moment the boys who were cooking at the fire suddenly hauled off a great chunk of meat and ran with it toward the grass. They bumped Piggy, who was burnt, and yelled and danced. Immediately, Ralph and the crowd of boys were united and relieved by a storm of laughter. Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal.

   Jack stood up and waved his spear.

   “Take them some meat.”

   The boys with the spit gave Ralph and Piggy each a succulent chunk. They took the gift, dribbling. So they stood and ate beneath a sky of thunderous brass that rang with the storm-coming.

   Jack waved his spear again.

   “Has everybody eaten as much as they want?”

   There was still food left, sizzling on the wooden spits, heaped on the green platters. Betrayed by his stomach, Piggy threw a picked bone down on the beach and stooped for more.

   Jack spoke again, impatiently.

   “Has everybody eaten as much as they want?”

   His tone conveyed a warning, given out of the pride of ownership, and the boys ate faster while there was still time. Seeing there was no immediate likelihood of a pause. Jack rose from the log that was his throne and sauntered to the edge of the grass. He looked down from behind his paint at Ralph and Piggy. They moved a little farther off over the sand and Ralph watched the fire as he ate. He noticed, without understanding, how the flames were visible now against the dull light. Evening was come, not with calm beauty but with the threat of violence.

   Jack spoke.

   “Give me a drink.”

   Henry brought him a shell and he drank, watching Piggy and Ralph over the jagged rim.. Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape.

   “All sit down.”

   The boys ranged themselves in rows on the grass before him but Ralph and Piggy stayed a foot lower, standing on the soft sand. Jack ignored them for the moment, turned his mask down to the seated boys and pointed at them with the spear.

   “Who is going to join my tribe?”

   Ralph made a sudden movement that became a stumble. Some of the boys turned toward him.

   “I gave you food,” said Jack, “and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?”

   “I’m chief,” said Ralph, “because you chose me. And we were going to keep the fire going. Now you run after food-”

   “You ran yourself !” shouted Jack. “Look at that bone in your hands!”

   Ralph went crimson.

   “I said you were hunters. That was your job.”

   Jack ignored him again.

   “Who’ll join my tribe and have fun?”

   I’m chief,” said Ralph tremulously. “And what about the fire? And I’ve got the conch-”

   “You haven’t got it with you,” said Jack, sneering. “You left it behind. See, clever? And the conch doesn’t count at this end of the island-”

   All at once the thunder struck. Instead of the dull boom there was a point of impact in the explosion.

   “The conch counts here too,” said Ralph, “and all over the island.”

   “What are you going to do about it then?”

   Ralph examined the ranks of boys. There was no help in them and he looked away, confused and sweating. Piggy whispered.

   “The fire-rescue.”

   “Who’ll join my tribe?”

   “I will.”

   “Me.”

   “I will.”

   “I’ll blow the conch,” said Ralph breathlessly, “and call an assembly.”

   “We shan’t hear it.”

   “Come away. There’s going to be trouble. And we’ve had our meat.”

   There was a blink of bright light beyond the forest and the thunder exploded again so that a littlun started to whine. Big drops of rain fell among them making individual sounds when they struck.

   “Going to be a storm,” said Ralph, “and you’ll have rain like when we dropped here. Who’s clever now? Where are your shelters? What are you going to do about that?”

   The hunters were looking uneasily at the sky, flinching from the stroke of the drops. A wave of restlessness set the boys swaying and moving aimlessly. The flickering light became brighter and the blows of the thunder were only just bearable. The littluns began to run about, screaming.

   Jack leapt on to the sand.

   “Do our dance! Come on! Dance!”

   He ran stumbling through the thick sand to the open space of rock beyond the fire. Between the flashes of lightning the air was dark and terrible; and the boys followed him, clamorously. Roger became the pig, grunting and charging at Jack, who side-stepped. The hunters took their spears, the cooks took spits, and the rest clubs of firewood, A circling movement developed and a chant While Roger mimed the terror of the pig, the littluns ran and jumped OB the outside of the circle. Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable.

   “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

   The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complementary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was tie throb and stamp of a single organism.

   The dark sky was shattered by a blue-white scar. An instant later the noise was on them like the blow of a gigantic whip. The chant rose a tone in agony.

   “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!

   Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind.

   “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

   Again the blue-white scar Jagged above them and the sulphurous explosion beat down. The littluns screamed and blundered about, fleeing from the edge of the forest, and one of them broke the ring of biguns in his terror.

   “Him! Him!”

   The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe.

   “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

   The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill.

   “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”

   The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, it’s arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

   Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the straggling heap on the sand. Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away. Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was stain-log the sand.

   Now a great wind blew the rain sideways, cascading the water from the forest trees. On the mountain-top the parachute filled and moved; the figure slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air and trod with ungainly feet the tops of the high trees; falling, still falling, it sank toward the beach and the boys rushed screaming into the darkness. The parachute took the figure forward, furrowing the lagoon, and bumped it over the reef and out to sea.

   Toward midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and trickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

   The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

   Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over” the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose farther and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapors, busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water.

   Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling, and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea.

  

CHAPTER TEN

 

The Shell and the Glasses

 

   Piggy eyed the advancing figure carefully. Nowadays he sometimes found that he saw more clearly if he removed his glasses and shifted the one lens to the other eye; but even through the good eye, after what had happened, Ralph remained unmistakably Ralph. He came now out of the coconut trees, limping, dirty, with dead leaves hanging from his shock of yellow hair. One eye was a slit in his puffy cheek and a great scab had formed on his right knee. He paused for a moment and peered at the figure on the platform.

   “Piggy? Are you the only one left?”

   “There’s some littluns.”

   “They don’t count. No biguns?”

   “Oh-Samneric. They’re collecting wood.”

   “Nobody else?”

   “Not that I know of.”

   Ralph climbed on to the platform carefully. The coarse grass was still worn away where the assembly used to sit; the fragile white conch still gleamed by the polished seat Ralph sat down in the grass facing the chiefs seat and the conch. Piggy knelt at his left, and for a long minute there was silence.

   At last Ralph cleared his throat and whispered something.

   Piggy whispered back.

   “What you say?”

   Ralph spoke up.

   “Simon.”

   Piggy said nothing but nodded, solemnly. They continued to sit, gazing with impaired sight at the chief’s seat and the glittering lagoon. The green light and the glossy patches of sunshine played over their befouled bodies.

   At length Ralph got up and went to the conch. He took the shell caressingly with both hands and knelt, leaning against the trunk.

   “Piggy”

   “Uh?”

   “What we going to do?”

   Piggy nodded at the conch.

   “You could-”

   “Call an assembly?”

   Ralph laughed sharply as he said the word and Piggy frowned.

   “You’re still chief.”

   Ralph laughed again.

   “You are. Over us.”

   “I got the conch.”

   “Ralph! Stop laughing like that. Look, there ain’t no need, Ralph! What’s the others going to think?”

   At last Ralph stopped. He was shivering.

   “Piggy-”

   “Uh?”

   “That was Simon.” “You said that before.”

   “Piggy-”

   “Uh?”

   “That was murder.”

   “You stop it!” said Piggy, shrilly. “What good’re you doing talking like that?”

   He jumped to his feet and stood over Ralph.

   “It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!”

   “I wasn’t scared,” said Ralph slowly, “I was-I don’t know what I was.”

   “We was scared!” said Piggy excitedly. “Anything might have happened. It wasn’t-what you said.”

   He was gesticulating, searching for a formula.

   “Oh, Piggy!”

   Ralph’s voice, low and stricken, stopped Piggy’s gestures. He bent down and waited. Ralph, cradling the conch, rocked himself to and fro.

   “Don’t you understand, Piggy? The things we did-”

   “He may still be-”

   “No.”

   “P’raps he was only pretending-”

   Piggy’s voice trailed off at the sight of Ralph’s face.

   “You were outside. Outside the circle. You never really came in. Didn’t you see what we-what they did?”

   There was loathing, and at the same time a kind of feverish excitement, in his voice.

   “Didn’t you see, Piggy?”

   “Not all that well. I only got one eye now. You ought to know that, Ralph.”

   Ralph continued to rock to and fro.

   “It was an accident,” said Piggy suddenly, “that’s what it was. An accident.” His voice shrilled again. “Coming in the dark-he hadn’t no business crawling like that out of the dark. He was batty. He asked for it. He gesticulated widely again. “It was an accident.”

   “You didn’t see what they did-”

   “Look, Ralph. We got to forget this. We can’t do no good thinking about it, see?”

   “I’m frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home.”

   “It was an accident,” said Piggy stubbornly, “and that’s that.”

   He touched Ralph’s bare shoulder and Ralph shuddered at the human contact.

   “And look, Ralph”-Piggy glanced round quickly, then leaned close-”don’t let on we was in that dance. Not to Samneric.”

   “But we were! All of us!”

   Piggy shook his head.

   “Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway you said I was only on the outside.”

   “So was I,” muttered Ralph, “I was on the outside too.”

   Piggy nodded eagerly.

   “That’s right. We was on the outside. We never done nothing, we never seen nothing.”

   Piggy paused, then went on.

   “We’ll live on our own, the four of us-”

   “Four of us. We aren’t enough to keep the fire burning.”

   “We’ll try. See? I lit it.”

   Samneric came dragging a great log out of the forest. They dumped it by the fire and turned to the pool. Ralph jumped to his feet.

   “Hi! You two!”

   The twins checked a moment, then walked on.

   “They’re going to bathe, Ralph.”

   “Better get it over.”

   The twins were very surprised to see Ralph. They flushed and looked past him into the air.

   “Hullo. Fancy meeting you, Ralph.”

   “We just been in the forest--”

   “-to get wood for the fire-”

   “-we got lost last night.”

   Ralph examined his toes.

   “You got lost after the . . .”

   Piggy cleaned his lens.

   “After the feast,” said Sam in a stifled voice. Eric nodded. “Yes, after the feast.”

   “We left early,” said Piggy quickly, “because we were tired.”

   “So did we-”

   “-very early-”

   “-we were very tired.”

   Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and then hurriedly took his hand away. Eric fingered his split lip.

   “Yes. We were very tired,” repeated Sam, “so we left early. Was it a good-”

   The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. Sam twisted and the obscene word shot out of him. “-dance?”

   Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all tour boys convulsively.

   “We left early.”

 

Day Eight Text Lord of the Flies
English I Stories Evans Homepage